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Since Grand Theft Auto 3, the open-world genre has exploded, but not every game has been a masterpiece. Join us as we count down the 10 most boring, broken, and disappointing sandbox games ever released.
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00:00Ever since Grand Theft Auto 3 proved how much of an interest there was in sandbox experiences,
00:05every studio since has been trying to capitalize on the boom, resulting in over a decade of diverse
00:11top tier titles that continue to push the industry forward. With that said, in a genre as popular as
00:17this where so many different releases have continued to innovate and push boundaries,
00:21there have been just as many stinkers acting as cautionary tales of how chasing the open
00:26world dollar can go terribly wrong. Consequently, throughout the years gamers have had to endure
00:31some of the most boring video games ever made, traveling through the same old sterile cities and
00:36repeating the same old missions over and over again. I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are the 10
00:42worst open world games of all time. Number 10. Vin Diesel's Wheelman
00:48While Vin Diesel has starred in some actually pretty damn good movie tie-in games, his 2009
00:53vehicle, Oi Oi, Wheelman is not one of them. The main problem is that the title just doesn't
00:59really know what it wanted to be. It mixes bits of Need for Speed with Stuntman and of course a
01:03little
01:04Grand Theft Auto for good measure, but doesn't really know what made all of those games tick,
01:08except from the iconography and high-speed car chases. This lack of identity is present in the
01:13gameplay itself, as a lot of the missions are confined to a car, as players control a blocky Vinnie D
01:18and drive around restricted parts of an open world, but a scant few do allow you to get out,
01:24stretch your legs and shoot people's faces off. Unfortunately, neither gameplay style is all that
01:29engaging. Like the movie itself, Wheelman could never quite escape the shadow of other better
01:34releases, but it is admittedly probably the best Fast and Furious game not to be called Fast and
01:39Furious. It's just a shame that it's more Too Fast Too Furious rather than Fast Five.
01:44Number 9. Risen 3 Titan Lords Enhanced Edition A series which has continued to chug on despite
01:51never releasing a game that's actually been any good, Risen 3 Titan Lords Enhanced Edition was the
01:56cherry on the sh**ty cake of this notoriously terrible pirate-themed franchise. While a lot
02:01of open world games on this list feel empty, Risen 3 is completely bereft of ideas and imagination
02:07in every department. Boasting combat clunkier than the ships you travel on, the very act of playing the
02:13sandbox title feels like a punishment forced on the player, while the fragmented story and
02:17repetitive enemies don't entice you to dig deeper into its admittedly grandiose world.
02:23Not only a technical disaster despite its enhanced moniker, Risen 3's RPG elements are some of the
02:28most needlessly complex the genre has ever seen. Just about every character has an ability they can
02:33teach you or something to sell, but the sequel never communicates which items and upgrades you can
02:38actually use or what you need to do to gain access to them. And that's if you can even remember
02:43which
02:43character had which thing in the first place. It's a right chew on. Number 8. Sniper Ghost Warrior 3
02:50Despite having three attempts at creating a good Sniper Ghost Warrior game, developers at CI Games
02:55have never really made something worth playing. 2017's third title was their most valiant effort yet,
03:01but while the gameplay was more refined than ever, taking the series' open world only introduced a myriad of
03:07new problems. Rather than offering anything new for fans of sandbox shooters to dig into,
03:12Ghost Warrior was content to just riff on the mechanics other games perfected years ago.
03:17Likewise, the shooter's entire selling point, adopting the role of a sniper and having to adjust
03:22for wind, distance and movement to line up the perfect shot was far too similar to the superior
03:27Sniper Elite series, slow-mo bullet time and all, meaning the sequel pretty much had nothing that
03:32allowed it to stand out from the crowd. Number 7. Saints Row 4 Got Out of Hell
03:37Although it started out in the shadows of GTA, over the years the Saints Row franchise proved that it
03:43was more than yet another copycat by doubling down on wacky open world design when the competition was
03:48moving towards more mature and self-serious experiences. That approach allowed the franchise
03:53to soar for a while, but by the time Saints Row Got Out of Hell came around, it became clear
03:58that the
03:58series' over the top zaniness was papering over a severe lack of original gameplay ideas. In fact,
04:04despite literally going to hell, the latest sequel felt staler than ever, and instead of ripping off
04:10GTA, was content to riff on the likes of Crackdown. Even worse, the humour that propped up the previous
04:15game's simile started to get old in Got Out of Hell, and despite a few creative flourishes here and
04:20there, only made the whole affair feel even more punishing. Saints Row could have gone anywhere after
04:25the release of the fourth game, but unfortunately the devs decided on the most lifeless option
04:30imaginable. Number 6. Two Worlds
04:33Drawing inevitable comparisons to Oblivion when it released back in 2007, the open-world RPG Two
04:39Worlds showed players how bad Bethesda series could have turned out in the wrong hands. While the game
04:44featured all the tenants you'd expect from a release in this genre, boasting a huge world to explore,
04:50characters you could tailor to your choosing, and a wide variety of beasts to fend off against,
04:54just about every one of these features was botched in some way. The map itself,
04:59while ambitious, became a chore to explore, thanks to some glaring bugs and glitches that made even
05:04simple movements a pain. Combat didn't fare much better either, with clunky controls turning every
05:09enemy encounter into a scrappy wrestling match rather than a grand fantasy battle. Likewise,
05:14the story crumbled the longer the game wore on, with the abysmal if noble voice acting,
05:19accomplished by the developers rather than a professional studio,
05:22ruining any impact it may have otherwise had. Number 5. Fuel
05:27Back in 2009, Fuel's open world was the largest the video game industry had ever seen. While that
05:33skill was certainly enticing though, the empty arcade driving propping it up tanked EA's chances of
05:39Fuel becoming a smash hit. A predictable rubber banding system meant that player controlled drivers
05:44often took the lead early on, slowing down in the final stages to allow the player to edge in front
05:49of
05:49the competition for a quote unquote epic photo line finish. While that could admittedly make the
05:54occasional race an exhilarating experience, when it happened every single time you jumped into the
05:59game, it became tiresome. Likewise, the bland open world itself didn't do much to stop every race from
06:05blurring into one hodgepodge of last minute victories and wonky driving mechanics. The brown
06:10smear over everything was supposed to evoke a strange, surreal post-apocalyptic landscape, but it only
06:15resulted in skid-marked environments to drive around in, and not the cool race car kind.
06:21Number 4. Driver 3
06:22Although the Driver series actually got out ahead of Grand Theft Auto in creating a 3D open world,
06:28by the time the third game in the series rolled around, the latter franchise had completely outmatched
06:33it with releases like GTA 3 and Vice City. Driver 3, or Drive Thria, or Drive Thur, ugh, however you
06:40pronounce it,
06:40consequently was developer reflections as dreadful response to the increased competition. Once again
06:46putting you in control of Tanner, the third game in the franchise attempted to ape Rockstar's open
06:51world formula, but only managed to create broken missions and a shooting system that always seemed
06:55to miss the mark. Endeavouring to create a dynamic open world by having NPCs react realistically to your
07:01actions, and introducing a rather impressive damage modelling system for vehicles. The sequel's
07:06technical shortcomings compared to its technical ambitions resulted in a sandbox that always felt
07:11under threat of coming apart at the seams, rather than the cohesive and life-like environment that
07:17devs had imagined. Number 3. Gangs of London
07:20Wanting to prove just what the PlayStation Portable was capable of, Sony released the open world crime
07:25game Gangs of London in 2006, but it wasn't exactly the ace up its sleeve the publisher thought it was
07:32going to be. There's something in the premise of letting you choose to pick a gang to join and wage
07:36war in London like you're in lock stock and two smoking barrels or something, but the gameplay itself
07:41was just so uninspired. Yay you can shoot people, yay you can run them over, yay you can pelt them
07:47with
07:47baseball bats, yay you can play pretend darts in a virtual pub and fall into an existential crisis over
07:52how you don't have anyone to do that with in real life. Ugh, only me then. Obviously all of these
07:57faults
07:58were made even worse by the limitations of the console itself. The goddamn machine only had one
08:03thumbstick, yet players were expected to properly explore this 3D open world. And yeah the devs did
08:08their best when it came to this aspect admittedly, but the tech only exacerbated the already pretty
08:14crappy gameplay. Number 2. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
08:18Hands down, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has one of the worst open worlds ever created. The drab grey city
08:24is
08:25barely any more lifelike than a cardboard cutout miniature, and the game even seems to recognise
08:29this, dropping the setting quite often in favour of tightly crafted levels. That somehow only makes
08:35the game worse though. At least in the city you get to swing around and pull off high flying spidey
08:40moves, but the repetitive objectives of the main quests as well as the restrictive levels suck out
08:45even that molecule of fun. And on top of that the fact that this sequel somehow looks worse than the
08:50original game despite benefitting from a new generation of consoles, and you're left with
08:55the worst gaming outing the web head has ever endured. And look, I bloody love Spider-Man games,
09:00I'm even a huge fan of the tie-in to The Amazing Spider-Man 1, but this, this is just
09:05sad. This is just
09:07sad man. Number 1. Superman Returns
09:10Creating a Superman game is no easy task, but EA's 2006 stab at bringing the character to life has become
09:16a
09:17textbook example of how a developer can completely f*** it up. Without any storyline to follow, the game
09:22has you flying across the same streets over and over again to fight the same old robots just so
09:27Metropolis's health bar doesn't run out. It's all busy work and despite the game featuring a level up
09:32system and upgrades, pretty much everything that the game has to offer can be experienced in the first
09:3820 minutes. Despite how bad it is though, there are good features that are completely squandered. The vast array
09:43of powers Superman has at his disposal, including a rather impressively executed ability that allows
09:49players to travel faster than a speeding bullet, a completely wasted on repetitive gameplay and
09:54unimaginative enemies, somehow making the superhero romp even more frustrating to play. It's all a
09:59shambles and in an era where this kind of movie cash-in has virtually been abandoned by the major
10:04publishers, it seems even worse in hindsight.
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